Apple's Mac Pro, the sleek and shiny trash can from outer space, is certainly a feat of engineering. It also costs $3,000. If you want to build a comparable machine yourself, you can save a lot of money by going with a Hackintosh.

Apple's new Mac Pro is very cool, but it has a lot of drawbacks, even ignoring the hefty price. If you want to expand its storage and capabilities, that small marvel suddenly becomes tangled in wires. You also have to spend more since external Thunderbolt gear costs more. If you don't have a great organizational scheme and deep pockets, you're not going to love the latest Mac Pro. Fortunately, you can build something better.

We consulted with hackintosh expert tonymacx86, who offered up some quality, tested builds. You can always see the variety he and his team come up with at CustoMac.com, but today we're going to feature our favorite alternatives to the Mac Pro. Of course, building your own Mac comes with all the risks and potential downsides of building your own machine and maintaining a hackintosh. We think they're worth it, and the process is ridiculously easy thanks to the work of tonymacx86 and his team, but you should know what you're getting into before you go buy all of this stuff. We recommend checkout out our always up-to-date guide to building a hackintosh for everything you need to know.

Building a hackintosh—that is, installing Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware—used to require extremely…
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The Builds

We'll show you what you'll get with Apple and how much you'll pay, then do the same with a hackintosh alternative. Specifications won't always be identical, as that's pretty much impossible, but we'll note the differences in each section.

The hack pro is $853.32 cheaper, of course, but the machines have some key differences. The Hack Pro benefits from having 4GB more RAM, though that RAM is a tiny bit slower (not that you'd ever notice). Apple's Mac Pro also has dual GPUs. Albeit slower in specifications, some professional software is specifically tuned and optimized to work with AMD FirePro GPUs. Unfortunately, almost no software takes advantage of these dual GPUs on a Mac at the moment and probably won't for awhile. Its PCI-based flash storage is faster, but whether or not you'll notice that speed is another story.

The main difference is the processor, as we're putting the top-of-the-line Core i7 processor up against Intel's server-grade Xeon E5. What kind of difference does this make? Not much. The Core i7 definitely scores lower in multi-core benchmarks, but Core i7 bests it in single core performance. When Macworld tested the new Mac Pro, they found its performance didn't rate much higher than a Core i7 27" iMac in real-world use. To give you some perspective, the 27" iMac uses essentially the same processor in the entry-level hack pro build here. Ultimately, you're likely wasting your money when buying a Xeon processor unless you go with a higher-end version and really, truly need the fastest multi-core processor possible.

Finally, as with all builds, the kind of ports and expandability options vary greatly. With Apple's Mac Pro, you get six Thunderbolt 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, two gigabit Ethernet ports, and one HDMI port. On the entry-level hack pro you get two Thunderbolt 2.0 ports, eight USB 3.0 ports (two on the front, six on the back), two gigabit Ethernet ports, and multiple video port options (including HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI). You also get several PCIe slots for expanding the machine in virtually any way you like. We prefer the hack pro's port offering, but ultimately it matters what suits your needs best.

The entry-level build we're offering isn't as cheap as it could be. We chose the fastest processor, the best motherboard, and high-end graphics card to make this a very powerful machine. If you don't need all of this power, you can knock as much as $1,000 off the price pretty fast. Check out tonymacx86's buyers guide for cheaper options, as the prices is going up from here on out.

Faster: A Need for Speed

If the entry-level Mac Pro and hack pro just doesn't do it for you, this next build offers a notable speed boost.

Just like the last build, you get more expandability and ports with the hack pro, but the hack pro also levels the playing field a little more. In this build we're using the same processor as Apple's Mac Pro. It does, however, win out on the graphics side thanks to dual GPUs. The hack pro build also loses its Thunderbolt ports (and reduces the number USB 3.0 ports), as there are no compatible Xeon motherboards that feature them. Of course, this build will save you $1,246.11, which might be worth a lot more than some added connectivity.

Fastest: The Best You Can Buy

If the entry-level Mac Pro and hack pro just doesn't do it for you, this next build offers a notable speed boost.

Apple's Mac Pro definitely wins on pretty much every count. It's just a faster machine, but that speed difference is negligible where the price is not. If you buy Apple, you'll pay $5,436.15 more for a slightly faster machine with fewer expandability options and built-in ports. So is it worth it? We don't think so.

Additional Hardware Resources

These Hack Pro builds were made possible thanks to the build guides created by tonymacx86 (and company). Be sure to check out those resources if you want to learn more about these builds or swap out any of the parts we chose.

The Hackintosh Process

Buying a bunch of parts is the starting point, but you still have to actually build your hackintosh. Fortunately, we've got you covered in all aspects. Here are a few resources we've put together to take you through the entire process—even if you run into problems: